


And Who Will Hear You

by Airmid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack and Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, season 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 05:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airmid/pseuds/Airmid
Summary: The deaths had to stop. The needless dying and just violence needed to end. Sam wasn't sure his plan was good. In fact, with his track record he was 99.9% certain it was a terrible plan but in the end, if someone could offer the devil something other than pain it would be him.





	And Who Will Hear You

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place directly after Rock Never Dies.
> 
> I have no idea where this came from and is - well a bit strange in some ways. But usually when I write this pair it's weird so there's that. I hope it is enjoyable.

* * *

 

 

He was the maker of poor decisions, he reflected. Dean was probably one hundred percent justified in thinking that he should not be making the critical choices here. They usually turned out bad, they usually were done with the wrong intentions, and often came close to killing one of them or the world.

This was probably going to be one of those times. He was fairly certain he could hear his brother screaming from here even if he was thirty miles away. Not like he could leave a note that wouldn’t end in a freak out, but he tried. Might as well try, because this time, well it was partially someone else’s mess.

“Lucifer,” he breathed out, making himself keep his eyes open. It was open and deserted out here, ground packed and hard and unused by anything for a long time. The night wasn’t dark, a large moon that seemed to be closer than normal loomed above him, her white face mournful over his latest moronic path. “Lucifer.”

It had occurred to him that the fallen angel hadn’t found a vessel yet which would mean that he wasn’t going to be able to come easily and thus thwart Sam’s grand scheme. Which was probably good. Probably very good because his brain had to be leaking out of his ears for him to even think of this. Cold metal pressed into his palm when he heard the wing beats, the only angel free that could fly was a ghost behind him.

“Sam.”

He dropped the lighter, the wall of fire burning up all around him, and he saw something flash in Lucifer’s eyes that wasn’t just anger. Something far worse that cut deeper was torn through the face of a man not all that young but not quiet old, silvery hair reflecting the fire light.

“I needed you to hear me out,” he said quietly before the angel could decide which part of him to tear off first. “I’ll help you out after that.”

“I see,” and Satan seemed amused, almost overjoyed that they were in some little game. Except it wasn’t a game and Sam held his hands out in front of him.

“I’m not here to hurt you or trap you or anything.”

“Mhmm.” Lucifer eyed the circle of fire around them. “That part’s clear.”

“I wanted a captive audience.” Satan just raised an eyebrow. “I want to help you.”

“This was not how I was picturing things going down, Sam.” Satan was focused on him now, trying to decide if he was dangerous or just dangerous to himself. “What are you hoping to get here? I don’t even like you.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sam pointed out, taking a step forward, as the loose soil under his foot shifted, dry and crumbling from lack of water. “I don’t think that’s true at all or you’d have killed me by now. You wanted to before.”

Satan shrugged. “Maybe I need entertainment in my new chaotic, no rules, everything goes world.”

Sam shook his head and put another foot forward, another step, and he was not surprised when Lucifer almost leaned back before catching himself. As if reminding himself that this was a pathetic little maggot of flesh that he could just vaporize in here surrounded by flames.

“What are you doing, Sam? I feel concerned for your wellbeing at this point as even this is beyond your normal levels of suicidal.”

“You haven’t tried to find me. You haven’t haunted my dreams. And I know you can, you even found ways from hell to do it because you were so desperate to get free and survive.” Sam didn’t pause even as he saw Lucifer’s true eyes, red that put all around them to shame.

“My curiosity is wearing thin.”

“I came for you,” he said quietly, as he saw the fallen angel stiffen, jaw clenched.

“To use me as a weapon.”

“True, but I still came and I still would now. If this is all I want then it should be easy for you to let me take it. Just be done with the whole thing then strike me down.”

“Fine, Sam.” Lucifer was attempting disinterest, but there was a wariness to how he stood. As if one more thing demanded he danced before he was able to burn it to cinder. “Whatever little game you think we’re playing in your head get on with it.”

“It’s not a game.” Sam closed the final few feet between them.

Lucifer was watching as he put a hand on his chest, feeling the chill of the angel seeping through it, and he wondered how no one else noticed this. How no other human could feel how cold he was or if Lucifer just made them not notice. The current vessel he had - and God he hoped that soul was asleep and not aware of what was going on as he mentally asked for forgiveness - was already showing signs of wear. Sam slid his fingers over the burns moving across the flesh, etching out the borrowed time.

“What are you doing, Sam?” Lucifer’s voice was soft, something dangerous and uncertain, and Sam knew he was about to lay with the snake. Put his hand out to be bitten and he may never come back from this.

He slid his hand up that throat, the fallen angel turning his face to see him better, as Sam would probably always have the height advantage here. There was a flutter, a stolen heartbeat, breaths that were unneeded yet taken all the same. Slight stubble and he felt chapped lips as those eyes were furious.

“I asked you what you were doing, Sam.”

“And you said you would let me do this because of the debt.”

That coiled fury strung taunt to snapping. To break him the first chance it got and Sam could feel it coursing through. Could feel it yearning to start trying to get out of their temporary prison while throttling him. Wanting to break and kill and just tear apart everything because there wasn’t anything else left.

Lucifer growled and Sam felt him trying to control himself, to keep himself from making Sam consist of pieces right now. To repay the debt and then take because that’s all he had ever been taught and was destined to always do. He let his hand glide through that hair, touch the skin and cheeks and the curve of the neck, and they were so close that he could feel the fury of hell seeping out in his hands.

Lucifer had him on the ground, pinned and fuming, the world spinning, and he was fairly certain he was bleeding somewhere.

“You pity me.”

“No,” he got out, still trying to get his lungs to understand that breathing was a very good thing after that jolt.

“You, you little, lonely pond scum of a worthless vessel who betrayed me pities me.” The pressure on him was released as Lucifer rocked back, staring up at the sky. “Happy Dad? Couldn’t get me lower so had to send in reinforcements to show just what I am to You?”

“Empathy isn’t pity,” Sam managed as he pushed himself up some, the fallen angel immediately focused back on him. The dirt crushed and fell between his fingers, refusing to provide firm grip.

“Were you trying for some sort of bizarre form of torture? Some sort of game where you think you get to laugh?”

“It’s not a game,” Sam said, his tone almost lost to the fire, as it burned bright around them. “You’re heartbroken. I’ve seen you be a lot of things but that wasn’t something I thought you could be.”

 _Because I didn’t think you ever had a heart_ , his mind added but he knew was heard all the same.

Lucifer eyed the flame wall, and there was exhaustion there, like he didn’t even really have the want to fight in this moment. Like if everything was for shit than this was too and he just wanted out. Sam wondered if the fallen angel even wanted to exist at all and pushed that thought back down.

“I could just beat and repair you until you let me go.”

“Do you want that? Or do you want to even know what this is?”

“Will you leave me alone if I let you do whatever strange thing you were planning on? Let me out?”

Something in his tone brought back those memories he tried not to think about. When they shared one body and Lucifer tried to talk to him, tried to get him all angry and hate fueled, as people were murdered with hands that were his but weren’t at the same time. That desperate strain through the core of that angel that nothing could be there, no one ever came in the end. It was the part that had snapped when Dean had come, had come to die with him because Michael hadn’t done that. Dean didn’t care, his brother didn’t care that he was freak, or a monster, or was broken more than a little, because he was _always_ Sammy.

He was sure Lucifer never had that. Maybe he didn’t deserve it, but that wasn’t what was important now.

“Yes.”

“Let’s get the show on the road, Sam. Got people to wear and places to conquer.”

Sam moved forward, trying to steady his nerves and not remember the bad things, so many of which Cas had made sure he wouldn’t know anymore. He kissed the devil, that mouth uncertain and unexperienced, and it was weird to have Lucifer not confident about something. It finally gave a little, opening, not being such hard marble and angel and a bit more human.

“You want this?”

“I want you to feel good for a change,” Sam told him, kissing him again, deeper this time. Hands were on him, unfamiliar and light like they didn’t know where the belonged, or if they did at all. “Have you not done this?”

There was something infinitely humorous in the father of sin being a virgin, and he managed to choke the laughter down when he saw Lucifer’s face.

“I have not found a need to dirty myself,” Lucifer said airily, as if human things like sex were beneath him, but being a famous rock star was A-Okay.

Sam figured that angels had screwy priorities, fallen or not.

“Okay, let’s try this differently,” he said as he moved behind Satan. And he did have to keep reminding himself that this was Satan who currently wasn’t assaulting him because they had a tentative deal here. He’d better make it good. He leaned Lucifer up against his chest, sprawling his legs out on either side of his hips. “Just relax.”

“Anything for you, Sam,” came the mocking tone and Sam huffed against his cheek.

He let his hands talk, undoing buttons and touching lightly, disliking how little time this body had. There were deep burns in the skin here, the angel bleeding through, and soon it would be destroyed. Some other poor soul without a life and it had to stop. He wanted Lucifer to see something worth saving, worth having.

Apparently angels did feel as he cupped his hand over that arousal, the fallen angel not moving. The thin cotton of the slacks couldn’t hid the chill of it as he squeezed and stroked, letting the friction carry the movements and got a slight tremble.

“Sam.”

“Not gonna hurt you,” he said as his fingers undid the buttons and the zipper, sliding Lucifer free. Perhaps he was the first that had said it and meant it, at least in these few minutes together. “I want you to have something other than pain.”

Icy hands were plucking at his legs now and he slid one up, foot bringing up a small cloud of dust as his boot dragged back. An arm circled his thigh, like Lucifer needed an anchor, and Sam worked, not really knowing how to do this as, God, college was a long time ago. All he knew was what he liked and he knew somehow that it would work.

It was so quiet when it happened; a tremble, a soft sound against his neck and he felt it spill out over his fingers. His other arm was around the angel, hand firm against his chest and he let them be quiet for a second, to feel, and he realized he wanted to do this again. He was in so many ways damned after all.

Though preferably not here though as his ass was asleep from the terrible seating.

“Why would you want this?” The words barely make it out, like if they do Sam will move and the whole thing will be lost.

Sam tightened his arm around that cold body against him, it didn’t bother him anymore.

“I fought for so long to not be you but I know we are the same. We just made different choices. When you are heartbroken I feel it. When you spoke about being abandoned, I understood it. When you could have stopped me with a slight wave of the hand but didn’t, I knew.”

In fact he was sure that part of the whole damn issue that almost ended the entire world was that Lucifer had been ditched. Instead of restrained or stopped or anything, God had just let him dig himself a hole, then buried him when it was deep enough.

Sam swallowed back something, he wasn’t sure if it was bitterness, anger, or grief. He didn’t hate God who had recently almost died in their house. No, but it hurt to know that he left them all again without even a glance back.

He ducked his head and kissed the corner of the mouth when he realized Lucifer was watching him.

The sound of something loud was coming, something poorly maintained and probably stolen, and he knew their time was up. In the light of the moon and through the veil of fire he could see some old beater car struggling through the field to reach them. A spark of remorse over taking the Impala, but he had to slow his brother down a bit.

Dean was rabid when he was threatened.

“You aren’t alone, if you don’t want to be,” Sam told the fallen angel, the one who had hurt and carved and tore at everything because that’s all he could feel, the only way left to feel.

With a swift movement, he started pushing dirt up and over part of the fire line that was by them, snuffing it out as the car came to a stop.

“Sam!”

He leaned back on his hands alone in the circle, Dean frantic on the other side, and he could see it in his brother’s face. That terrible worry of what Sam done fuck up now.

“I’m okay, Dean. Still here.”

“I don’t –“ Dean stopped, scrubbing at his head with his hands and starting to pace, energy and nerves all loose and tangled together at once. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Sam got his towering frame upright, legs still a bit pins and needly from the cold and position he had been in and dusted his jeans off. While he could feel the heat, it didn’t burn him as he slide through the line he had made for Lucifer. Dean was wild, a bundle of fear, and his face was twisted into something that was almost ugly if it had been anything other than despair.

“You had him didn’t you? You had that sadistic son of a bitch and you let him go.”

“Yes.”

“Sammy,” and there was a plea there like a half sob. Something in Dean begging him to give a good reason why this was going on. To make it make sense instead of sending Lucifer back to hell and just leave him there.

Sam let him breathe, because he couldn’t give a reason right now. He didn’t think he could give one later and he dreaded seeing his mother after this. All sad eyes, worried about what had happened to her baby boy, and he swallowed.

“Okay,” Dean was saying. “Okay. Get in the car, Sam and we’ll fix this okay. We’ll make it.”

Dean was babbling but Sam let him as he handed the keys over to his older brother, taking his shotgun position. Dean eyeing him like Lucifer was curled up in there and it was a game, but he knew Dean knew better. Knew his brother got some of what happened and couldn’t process it yet.

“It’ll be okay, Sam, I promise.”

He watched the fire disappear from view, still burning bright in the night, as Dean navigated the field to take them home.

 

* * *

 

  
Outside of Castiel and brother demands that he be checked to make sure he wasn’t cursed or hexed or under mind control or worse, had an angel in him, Dean was quiet. Way, way too quiet for his brother who made everything a show of noise. From dropping boots on the floor when he took them off to the toss of the duffle and rattling around in the bathroom. His brother could breathe loud if he put his mind to it, and Sam was fairly certain this was a concerted effort. Something in his brother was terrified that if he made to big of a bang Sam would start and run.

Sam didn’t know whether to be pleased or pissed that Dean put him mentally on the same page as a startled Gazelle.

Something mean and nasty was snacking on people in this town and they were puttering around in the normal ways trying to find it. It just made it that much harder when Dean acted like he was about explode green goo at any moment.

He’d like to point out that Lucifer had stopped at least for the last few days. Nothing new. Crowley was coming up empty handed on any Satan sightings, like Lucifer had just fallen off the world. All it did was make them all tense up.

“Hey, Sam,” and he did jump, because Dean had been too quiet and soft and just not Dean.

“Yeah.”

“I’m tired, haven’t slept real well. You want to be dropped off anywhere or go back to room?”

“There was that diner place near it. How ‘bout there?”

“Sure, Sam.”

The lot came into view and Sam managed to shuffle together all the files and the computer so that he could do research. Dean did look really tired, but he wondered who he wanted to call. He’d be nearby in case something unwelcomed showed up. Less than five minutes from the room.

“You want me to bring you back anything?”

“Yeah, if it’s good. If not I’ll grab something when we do the stake out later.”

“K.”

Sam unfolded himself, balancing all his stuff, as he slammed the door. He half waved at Dean with his hands still full, who nodded and pulled out in the direction of the hotel. It should have been normal. It felt normal, like they had done a thousand times before, but it was hollow. His brother was so tired and broken and he couldn’t help him unless he could get the world a little bit more from the edge.

Of course turning and seeing Lucifer leaning against the wall by the door didn’t help. He tried not to glare as the devil opened the door for him in some weird courtesy as he got himself in.

“Two?” the woman asked and he nodded as she led them to a table, Lucifer sliding across from him. The worn red seat creaked and protested him daring to sit, and scuffed steel fittings gave a rather dull flare of life to the place.

“I thought you would be happy to see me.”

“I am,” Sam said, getting his folders pushed against the far side up against the wall. “Just that Dean’s gonna think I set this up when I didn’t.”

“Ah, well,” Lucifer rested his elbows on the table, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “Not much to do for that.”

For some strange reason Sam couldn’t even place, he offered the devil one of his hands, as he flipped open the menu, palm side up, waiting against the cracked, dirty white Formica of the table. He was debating on whether he wanted breakfast for lunch when he felt the slide of fingers against his palm.

“You eating?” he asked, not looking up, as he flipped the menu with his free hand.

“I could tear you apart before your next blink,” Lucifer said conversationally and Sam hummed in agreement as he noticed their salads might be good. “Cart you off and carve you over and over again till you give your body over and then destroy the world.”

Sam moved his own fingers up a bit, catching them in the ones on his open palm. “You might like the fruit.”

The southwestern steak salad was looking like a good option when Lucifer just slid the whole menu away from him in one solid motion. Which was of course when the waitress came back over and Sam could see her eyebrow raising straight into her bleached blonde hairline at the way they were sitting.

“Coffee and Steak salad. Plus a bowl of seasonal fruit. Thanks,” Sam said, handing over their menus with one hand, as his other was still caught up with the devil’s.

“No problem, hon.” She put on a smile, the one that said she was a trooper and valued her job so she wasn’t going to say a thing, as she slipped off to go put their order in.

“She was thinking very unflattering things, Sam,” Lucifer said, seeming to look him over to get a reaction. Sam shrugged letting the devil play with his hand. Lucifer bent and stretched out his fingers, not hard just balanced on the edge of being painful before pushing them the other way.

They sat there like that for a few minutes, a coffee coming for Sam, and it was bitter but not bad enough to need cream. Lucifer just watched and Sam pushed the cup over. A curl of a lip, fingers of his free hand around the handle, and the devil took a sip before instantly making a face. Sam was impressed he didn’t just spit it out back into the cup.

“You like this.”

“Caffine. Some places make it taste pretty good but it’s usually bitter.”

There looked to be something else there that the fallen angel wanted to say, those eyes waiting for something, but it was quiet between them. Sam reached over and got one of the files, flipping through the first few pages, hoping to see a better pattern then they currently had, which was squat.

Lucifer was quiet as his salad came and Sam was finally going to have to take back his hand. Instead, he hooked a foot behind Lucifer’s ankle, as he put on the dressing and mixed it up, glancing over the pages. A fruit cup with something decent, strawberries, grapes and honeydew had also come, and Sam slid it in front of the devil.

By the time he had finished his salad, he realized that Lucifer had finished his fruit bowl, and Sam moved their dishes to the edge of the table before offering his hand again.

“Your fingers are sticky,” he said, something endearing about that.

“You could fix that,” and Sam knew that tone. Like Lucifer thought he had said something to get Sam on edge, expose it.

Sam looked up, seeing a few families eating a couple booths down, and shook his head. “Too risqué for here. Later on.”

The gaze Lucifer fixed him with was intense, trying to peel and see everything that was in him, because there had to be a trick. Something turned in him to think that this creature’s existence, the vast bulk of it, had been that. Driven by corruption and not having someone there able to hold his hand and take him back like he had had. Not that he had done a good job with the restraint. It wasn’t exactly Michael’s fault solely either, and Sam tried not to think what Lucifer may have done to him.

“Nothing.” The answer was bitter but Sam didn’t think it was towards him. “He’s near catatonic.”

“Why don’t you let him out then?”

Lucifer suddenly looked away, and the fingers on his palm bit into it. “I don’t know what he’d do, if he’d raise a hand to wipe everything away.”

“You could help him.”

“He left me down there,” Lucifer hissed, and Sam felt real pain now, and knew there would be marks and blood from those nails. That this was the devil just barely restrained before he started tearing.

“Don’t you want to be better than him?”

The pressure stopped, Lucifer shifting back in his booth, eyes staring out the window, and Sam knew that his hand was healed when he felt cold grace bloom against his torn skin. Nothing else was said for a long while. The waitress saw the sheriff’s stamp on his papers and she left them alone, just coming by with the coffee from time to time. Shadows were getting long outside, and he knew he had to get going. Dean would probably start looking for him soon if he didn’t show.

“I have to get, Dean’s going to be worried. I’d say you could come along but not sure right now is the best time.” He was gathering up the files from the table when his wrist was caught, Lucifer staring him down.

“You really are serious about this? I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered by your obvious dementia.”

“It’s up to you,” Sam said quietly, leaving money for the bill on the table. “It was nice to sit with you.”

Surprisingly, Lucifer released him, eyes staring up at him like Sam was the most puzzling enigma he had ever encountered in his long existence.

Carrying the files under one arm, laptop case slung over his other shoulder, he enjoyed the walk back to the room, sun bright and warm. Before he could even knock, Dean was opening the door looking at him, phone to his ear.

“Yeah sheriff, we’ll be right there.”

“Another one?” Sam asked, feeling no closer to the whole solution but his brother shook his head, looking even more tired.

“Did you go there to meet someone, Sammy? Tell me straight now.”

“Not on purpose,” he said, voice barely reaching his own ears. “He was just there.”

“And you two what – compared bad dates and commiserated over how hard it is to find a man?”

“Just sat there, Dean. Really, had lunch, wasn’t great, figured we’d get you better. Why, what happened?”

“K,” and he hated how defeated his brother sounded in that one syllable, as the door was swung open wider. “It wasn’t a monster we were after, Sam. Not our kind.”

“So what kind?” Sam set his files down tried to center himself because he was fairly certain what had happened now. What had been done.

“Some sick perv. Wife found him just dead on the floor, still warm with a broken neck. Found a girl bound and gagged and near death in his root cellar along with a lot of other shit. I just –“ Dean ran a hand through his hair as he sat on the bed. “I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead but maybe make sure he lays off in the future.”

“Alright.” Sam very much felt it wise right now to leave out the fact that he had not told Lucifer to do anything at any point. Not to mention controlling an archangel.

“Told the sheriff we’d be there in a few. Want to make sure this is the real deal and then we can blow this joint.”

Sam nodded as he watched his brother get himself up, looking as though he was going to shatter into dust in the next second, and Sam grabbed him.

“Dean, are you sure you want to go? We don’t have too.”

“Fine, Sam,” Dean said straightening himself up a bit. “Just fine. Stop worrying about me.”

“I get to cause I love you.”

The words were just out, a jumbled mess, and Dean looked at him because they don’t say that. They never say that and Sam just did. After all the pain and lies and death between them now it was just silent and it felt so fragile. Like what they had was gone and they hadn’t realized it yet.

“Get your coat, Samantha, we gotta go,” his brother quipped looking at him like he had just grown two more heads and was planning on eating the table.

This, Sam mused, could happen given who he had just had lunch with.

He got his coat and went.

 

* * *

 

  
It had been weeks and the world was calm outside of their British stalkers from the UK’s Men of Letters. No weird demon things, no burned corpses. Demons on the low down, which if they had to be here at all is where they needed to be.

Also, no Lucifer.

Dean was relaxing a little but still tense, going on a hunting rampage the likes of which Sam always saw him do when he was restless, uncertain and feeling almost hopeless. Like back before he had gone to hell, back when he had come back from Purgatory. That constant need to help, to keep moving. To not stop, and he hoped meeting up with mom in a few hours would help him. Though he’d probably get two sets of sad eyes and a judgmental angel at that point.

So, because he was Lucifer free, and God there had a point where he would have sold off everything he was to have that, he prayed. He prayed to the fallen angel who was out there somewhere doing Sam didn’t know what. He didn’t know exactly what to say so he found himself telling everything.

Outside of what he really feared. He could take the pain, and the fury, and the torture. All of it, all that Lucifer was wrapped up as, and still oozing out when he sat before God but he didn’t want destruction. He still wanted to keep his soul intact as that was one of the only things he still had left, as wounded and bleeding in a million different ways as it was. And not only from the devil’s hands.

Lucifer hadn’t shown up to just tell him to shut up so he figured praying wasn’t a bad thing.

Dean was changing tapes when there was a rustle, extra people in the backseat and the brakes were being slammed, hard. Sam felt the seat belt catch as he was flung forward, the sound of stuff sliding around in the trunk very noticeable.

“Your driving needs improvement, Winchester,” Lucifer was saying as Sam turned, thankful they were the only car out here at the moment.

And he knew it was Lucifer because he was wearing Nick, the poor slob that got tapped because Sam got rescued by God. Leaning up against him across his lap, head on his shoulder was Adam. Well Michael at least. Dean sucked in a breath before one word was pushed out as a demand.

“Adam?”

“Oadriax.”

Michael's voice was strained and his eyes looked completely unfocused as he held onto his brother. Sam wasn’t even sure he knew where he was at this point, or if he was even aware he wasn’t in hell.

“And that is?” Dean asked like it was some other realm full of wondrous archangel bullshit but Sam had a fair idea what it was before the devil spoke.

“Heaven,” Lucifer said quietly. “I would assume before the Cage as I never saw Adam. Now if you two are done…”

“You want to ride with us?” Dean was in complete disbelief. He looked at Sam, then the back seat, then back at him again, and Sam was fairly certain his brother was about to say ‘no more’ and just leave. Or start pointing guns to get them to leave.

That was a fair possibility.

“Sam believes I can’t just leave him down them. I’m not a nurse. I figured you larva could be useful in assisting me to make sure he doesn’t blow anything up.”

“Awesome,” Dean muttered and put the car back in gear. “Sammy, get better taste in men. Don’t care if you date them, just bring something good home next time.”

Sam didn’t know what to say as he was still twisted around in his seat taking the archangels in. Lucifer shifted Michael slightly in his arms, getting him into what looked like a more comfortable position, and the elder angel’s head slumped forward, something less strained in him now. A whisper of words before Lucifer looked back up at him.

“Favor,” the devil said gesturing at himself as he held Michael close to him. Like it was no big deal and Sam knew better than to push it. “Where are you two going?”

“To see our mom.”

“Were going to see our mom.”

“Dean,” Sam said quietly beside him. “Maybe we should call her. Let her chose. I doubt she would feel great if we just said our lives got too weird, come back next spring.”

“And you trust him around her?”

Sam turned back around, half choked by the seatbelt at this point, and saw Lucifer looking faintly bemused. “Do you promise me that no harm will come to her? You won’t hurt her in any way, will not hurt us in front of her, or do anything to cause her harm?”

“And Cas. Really, anybody at this point,” Dean spat out.

“Yes.”

It was simple and flat, no sign of deflection of plotting or anything else. Like he was planning on how to use Michael in this state as a weapon or a work around where he might _accidentally_ do something. It was as honest as when he told Sam that his heart broke for him and that they would always, always end up together.

Barely trust, as Dean would never put mom in front of these things, but he knew the offer had to be made. For some kind of progression to be had, to keep moving forward. Lucifer did keep promises. Sam never forgot that despite the deception that had come after. Never forgot that Lucifer could lie and bend the truth but also kept his word.

Michael stirred again, something painful and just pure fatigue like he was being ripped apart, and his tired voice so soft as he worked out the English he wanted. “I’ll make sure he won’t.”

“Great. Well I just feel all atwitter at our new level of peace and acceptance,” Dean muttered as he got out his phone. “Here Sammy, you get to be the one to call her and tell her what stupid thing is up now.”

Sometimes he hated his brother as he pulled up their mother’s number, finger hovering before he placed the call.


End file.
